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Education board
approves statewide
education tests
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Indians in court
battle with Jackie
Onassis
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Ask Gramma:
new Ojibwe News
weekly feature
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Canadian Supreme Court to hear
case involving Leonard Pettier
Toronto (AP)- The Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments
April 17 on whether American Indian activist Leonard Peltier was
improperly extradited to the United States on charges of murdering two
FBI agents, his lawyer said Thursday.
Lawyer Diane Martin of Toronto said she will present evidence that
false evidence was submitted at Peltier's extradition hearing 12 years
ago.
The Supreme Court will be asked to reopen Peltier's case and hold a
new extradition hearing, she said in an interview.
Peltier, 43, is serving two consecutive life sentences at Leavenworth
prison in Kansas for murdering two FBI agents on a South Dakota
Indian reservation in 1975.
Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were killed in a shootout.
Peltier was cgnvicted of their murders in 1977. He was tried in Fargo,
N.D.
Peltier fled to Canada and was arrested at Hinton, Alberta, in 1976. A
Vancouver court ordered his extradition to the United States.
But Martin said an affidavit from Myrtle Poor Bear that said she was
present when Peltier shot the two FBI agents is false.
"There is no doubt it was false," she added, "that was uncontested."
Martin said there is also no evidence proving Peltier pulled the trigger
of the gun that killed the agents.
In 1986, a U.S. Court of Appeal ruled that the prosecution withheld
ballistics evidence favorable to Peltier and "there is a possibility the jury
would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data
improperly withheld from the defence been available to him."
But the three judges concluded there was not enough evidence to
order a new trial.
Peltier's 12-year effort for a new trial has had the support of the U.S.
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Amnesty International and
South African Archbishop Desmond Turn.
Hurricane Joan fund raiser planned
On Saturday morning, Jan. 28, the Ecumenical Task Force on Peace
with Jusitce will sponsor a fund raising breakfast to benefit victims of
Hurricane Joan. The event will begin at 9 a.m. at the United Methodist
Church, Ninth Street and Beltrami Avenue, in Bemidji. A newly
released documentary, "Hurricane Joan," will be featured. Hurricane
relief brigades and other hurrican relief efforts will be discussed.
Hurricane Joan hit Nicaragua's east coast on Oct. 22, 1988 and went
on a 36-hour rampage which devastated the small Central American
country. The storm razed entire towns, left 181,000 people homeless,
did extensive ecological and agricultural damage, killed and injured
hundreds, and hundreds were reported missing. Preliminary figures put
total damages at $800 million, about four years worth of national
exports. The disaster has been cynically politicized resulting in a
shortage of foreign assistance.
Material donations as well as cash contributions will be gratefully
accepted. Everyone is welcome.
Judges imposing longer sentences
St. Paul (AP)- Twenty-seven offenders have been sentenced to more
than twice the recommended terms in the two years since the state
Supreme Court made it significantly easier for judges to greatly exceed
sentencing guidelines, says the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines
Commission.
The commission's report released Thursday said its 1986 data showed
a significant increase in the frequency with which judges imposed
sentences more than double those called for in the guidelines. But in
1987 that appeared to level off, the report said. The report does not
include data from last year.
The commission recommended further study of long sentences to
make sure there are no serious problems with sentences becoming
disproportionate to the crime and to ensure that people who commit
similar offenses in Minnesota receive similar sentences.
The
Ojib we
Fifty Cents
News
Founded in 1988
Volume 1 issue 36
January 25,1989
i
Copyright, the Ojibwe News, 1989
A Weekly Publication
Bemidji, Minnesota 56601
Red Lake Chairman Roger Jourdain, seated left, examines the record signed by Interior Secretary Donald Hodel, seated right, during a ceremony In
Washington on Wednesday, Jan. 11. Other council members are, from left to right, Tom Still Day, Bob White feather, Bill King, Greeting Spear and Adolph
Barret. The Red Lake band of Chippewa received 32,000 acres of land in Koochiching County. The land Is part of 188,000 acres of land ceded for
homesteading 100 years ago. The land was returned to Red Lake In 1945, but the 32,000 acres were overlooked In the transfer. Not pictured, but who also
accompanied the tribal council on the trip, were Al Thunder, Donald and Debra Allery and Monty Hammit. AP/Wide World Photos
Lottery companies hire lobbyists to woo Minnesota lawmakers
St. Paul (AP)- Four major state
lottery companies have hired
lobbyists in an attempt to ensure
that proposed lottery legislation
before Minnesota lawmakers will
be as lucrative as possible for them.
"Selling to lotteries is big
business," J. Blaine Lewis,
president of the National
Association of State and Provincial
Lotteries and director of the
Connecticut state lottery, said
Monday. "Even in small states, the
lottery is big business. The more
money lotteries make, the more
vendors (suppliers) make."
Legislators are in the initial
stages of writing a law that will
determine how the lottery will be
shaped, managed and promoted.
The lobbyists oppose restrictions
that would dampen sales, because
vendors normally get a percentage
of gross sales. Restrictions on
advertising or on jackpot limits
probably would cut into sales, said
Andrew Kozak, a representative of
the Bloomington-based Control
Data.
The first thing lobbyists want,
Kozak said, is "a level playing
field," meaning the law should be
written so all firms can bid and so
none goes in with an advantage.
The four major companies that
supply on-line computers to record
and monitor lottery sales and to
service lottery networks are
GTECH Corp., Providence, R.I.;
Control Data; General Instrument,
Hunt Valley, Md., and Scientific
Games, Atlanta.
The medium-size Washington
state lottery recently awarded a
contract to Control Data that is
worth an estimated $40 million
over the next five years.
Evelyn Sun, director of the
Washington state lottery, said
Control Data will collect 2.5
percent of annual gross sales in its
new contract. That is a fairly high
percentage, said Sun, but Control
Data must pay for leasing
telephone lines for the computer
system. That is estimated to be
about $1.5 million a year.
Scientific Games, which has a
contract with the Iowa lottery's
lotto game, earned about $1.4
million last year on gross sales of
$47.1 million, according to Bret
Voorhees, spokesman for the
lottery.
Exclusive interview-
Vernon Bellecourt interview continues
By Mark Boswell
Assistant Editor
77i/s is the second in a series of
interviews with Vernon Bellecourt.
I conversed with Vernon
Bellecourt, a member of the
American Indian Movement and
White Earth enrollee, last week at
his residence in Minneapolis.
Bellecourt, who has recieved
much media attention because of
his trips to Libya and his
relationship with Col. Muammar
Quaddafi, has been a long-time
advocate of aboriginal peoples
throughout the world.
Last fall he was arrested and
jailed for refusing to testify in court
about a previous visit to Libya.
MB: I think that its difficult for
people to realize the parallels
between human rights struggles,
particularly those going on here in
Minnesota on the White Earth
Reservation and the struggles going
on elsewhere.
VB: I understand that. Its
because of our isolation. I've had
the extreme honor and opportunity
to be able to break out of the
poverty syndrome and see it from
the outside.
From White Earth to every
reservation across this country I
can see it ingrained in the thinking
of tribal leadership. We are all
suffering from the poverty
syndrome. They got us locked into
a mindset that is, "Oh, its so hard to
be an Indian."
It's as if we almost accept the
kind of life that's imposed on us as
an Indian way of life.
Because of fortunate
opportunities that I have had to
travel and learn, I have broken out
of that.
I can see that U.S. foreign policy
against other oppressed peoples is a
direct reflection of its domestic
policy toward Indian peoples and
others.
MB: In your opinion, they've
perfected oppression here?
VB: Yes. America is the
laboratory of repression. The
history of America was almost like
a scientific laboratory of repression
against the Indian on a grand scale.
Now they're carrying out those
same programs and policies
throughout the world, including
"The rhetoric of genocide."
MB: The rhetoric of genocide?
VB: You've got to understand
the whole thing about what the U.S.
is doing. At any time in our history
when our leaders, our chiefs, stood
to defend themselves and their
lands and their peoples, they were
called savages, hostiles, renegades,
red dogs, heathens, pagans—"The
rhetoric of genocide." America has
refined this process.
The mindset that we, as Indian
people, are locked into is a direct
result of mis process.
So that if we continue to allow
ourselves to be locked into a
mindset that we can't see, we'll
never get anywhere.
You can see it in the competition
and animosity between White Earth
and Naytahwaush, or Pine Point
and White Earth. Or, "You're from
Red lake, you don't belong here";
or, "You're from Leech Lake, you
don't belong here."
They've got us playing the game,
they refined it and they've gotten
us accepting it and playing the
game.
So, I'm willing to accept the
responsibility. But ultimately, if
we as Indian people are going to
survive, we have to deal with the
cancer and not the symptom.
All we are doing is being locked
into the symptoms of welfare, food
stamps, poverty. These things breed
violence in the family, chemical
dependency, drug addiction, broken
homes, orphaned children, high
populations of our people in
prisons.
So we have to understand that
this is not our problem alone. Its
not only our suffering. Those
problems were created for us, and
we are the ones that suffer.
The same situation arises when
we look at aparthied in South
Africa.
Americans are eager to take on a
cause in Nicaragua, or El Salvador,
or South Africa. But, Americans
were the architects of aparthied,
what is happening to the blacks in
South Africa, has already happened
to us and is being refined.
The blacks are being forced onto
the worst lands called Bontu
Stands, which means "the people's
land". The same thing happened
here when we were forced onto
what was considered the worst
lands called reservations. Bontu
Stands and reservations. It's the
same type of policy.
It seems as if -South Africa came
and studied in the U.S. to see how
America dealt with the Indian, in
order to perpetuate this evil in
South Africa. Now they're coming
back with things like the White
Earth Reservation Land Settlement
Act and they get puppet regimes,
like the current one under Darrel
Wadena, but not limited to him.
The U.S. government uses our
leadership like they use Bontu
Hi W-
Chiefs in South Africa, to further
perpetuate the destruction of the
black. Likewise, to further
perpetuate the destruction of the
Indian. Now they're taking back
the Bontu stand.
America and its corporate
community have an insatiable
greed that will never be satisfied
my friend, until they have
everything that-the Indian has; until
our land is gone and we have
become the vanished American.
And if we allow it to happen, then
we are buying into our own
destruction.
Beltecourt/page 6
created from photo by Terri LaDuke
Snowbound deer
not yet in danger
By Mark Boswell
Assistant Editor
With 30 inches of snow on the
ground and winter only half over
many people have voiced concern
over how this might affect the
deer populations in Indian
Country.
Jim Ziegler, of die White Earth
Reservation Conservation
Department stated, "The critical
time will be late February or early
March, depending on how the
weather goes between now and
then."
According to Ziegler this winter
has not been difficult for the deer
despite the unusual amount of
snow that blankets the area. Mild
temperatures and little or no wind
have benefitted the deer who
would otherwise have to burn
their fat reserves to keep warm on
cold winter nights.
"They metabolize a lot slower
in the winter," said Ziegler, "the
problem that occurs when people
go out and feed the deer is that
their metabolism increases due to
the introduction of food sources
they might not get until spring."
According to Mark Lenarz, of the
Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources in Grand Rapids, this
artificial stimulation of the deer's
metabolism causes them to be
dependent on these other food
sources.
"Anyone who wants to feed the
deer better be prepared to feed
them for the rest of the winter
because of this," said Lenarz.
Normally, a deer can survive
without any significant food
intake for eight or nine weeks,
explained Lenarz. The
introduction of artificial food
sources can upset this natural
method the deer have developed
to survive Minnesota winters.
Buck Cummings, President of
the Detroit Lakes Area Wildlife
Club said that his organization
had discussed the possibility of
feeding deer but will not do so
until late February or early
March.
"We had Earl Johnson, the
Wildlife Manager from the area
DNR come in and talk to us about
this," said Cummings. Johnson
suggested the late winter for
feeding because that will be the
most critical time.
White-tailed deer in Minnesota
typically herd together during the
winter months. Depending on the
terrain and available food sources
the herds can run from eight to
ten animals in forested areas all
the way up to 100 animals for
open or prairie herds.
The small areas that the deer
herd into in winter are called
yards. These yards may be
targeted for feeding, but no
immediate plans have been made.
Leech Lake Reservation has
made available heavy equipment
and labor to clear trails and
roadways for the deer to traverse
on that reservation.
As of yet. White Earth
Reservation has not made plans
for feeding or clearing trails.
According to Ziegler the
techniques of feeding and/or
clearing trails may not effectively
aid the deer population.
"Even if we had the money to
do it," explained Ziegler," we
might be able to reach only two
or three percent of the deer on the
reservation, and out of that small
percentage its hard to say how-
many healthy animals would have
survived the winter anyway.
We'll just have to wait and see
how the rest of the winter goes."